What are you running it on/what is the performance of the game

[Henry Ford]

I wish a moderator would make this sticky.

This is for people who wish to buy the game but dont want to run the chance of not being able to play it, becuase apparently the min. and rec. requirments are a little off!

So please list your specs including OS, and state the quality of game play.(dont forget map size, graphics, number of civs, and any other options that hender or optimize performance). Thanks.

 

[Underseer]

• AMD Sempron 2400+
• 1GB PC 2700 RAM
• GeForce 6600 GT (AGP)
• Hercules GameTheater XP

I have all the graphic options turned all the way up and play at 1280x1024. The game runs fine for the most part, although I get a little sluggishness from time to time. I think there's a memory leak as if I play for a long time, the game slows down and restarting the game clears this up.

 

[zonk]

...and I'm in no way qualified to be anything more than another voice in the din.

I run a P4 1.7, 512 RDRAM Dell 8200, originally with a GeForce3 64 meg card.

Had no end of frustrations and problems -- literally couldn't get past the first turn... slow downs, freezes, CTD, etc. Seemed pretty obvious- based on the fact that even CTD and freezes were proceeded by obvious issues in graphic rendering - that I needed more graphic muscle.

I added another 256 of RAM and move to an ATI 9000 card/128 meg.

Had more success -- I'm having driver problems with my new card (got a discounted open box with no disk and ATI doesn't seem to offer the original driver on their site). My system thinks I'm running a geforce4 mx420 now - and Civ disables a lot of the graphics (virtually all animation is gone).

However, on the plus side -- have been able to play a bit with no crashes.

Soooo.... and this is just my lonely ol' opinion.....

I really do think you need a minimum 128 meg card, with all the T&L/pixel shading bells and whistles.

Maybe later tonight, I'll see if adding another 256 of RAM was really necessary, but put me squarely in the column of those believing that a 128 meg gfx card should be considered a "minimum requirement", not a rec'ed requirement. There's a sticky at the top on cards/T&L/etc that's really helpful, as well as another good card Q&A thread that was informative, too.

Like I said -- in no way an expert -- but I really do believe the vid card is the key.

 

[Tempete]

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
PC3200 512MB RAM
Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 128MB
Integrated sound

Graphics turned all the way down, which doesn't take away one bit from the gameplay. Choppy frame-rates by default, but is somewhat cleared up when forced Pixel Shader 1.4.

 

[Big Ev]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
GeForce 7800GTX
2GB DDR400 Corsair RAM
Windows XP Pro x64

1600x1200, 4xAA, everything high

Scrambled intro and wonder videos (resolution has not affected this)
Game crashes after about 15-30mins of gameplay.

 

[BOHICA_Civilian]

Athlon 64 4000+
GeForce 6800 GT
2GB Corsair PC2700 DDR
SB Audigy 2 ZS

In most cases it runs well. However, in my newest game(the 3rd) my graphics are sluggish in areas. I've tried everything in my power to alleviate the stress on my card, but nothing seems to work.

It's really dissapointing because I never thought a Civilization would put so much stress on my card(even at medium graphics).

 

[damason]

Laptop - P4, 3.06 GHz; 768 MB RAM; ATI Mobility Radeon 9000; XP SP 2.

No opening videos; no main menu to choose options from; no playing game.

 

[Thomas Davie]

AMD 64 x2 @ 4800+ (dual cpu)
2 gb ddr400 ram
Geforce 7800 GTX (GFX?, GSX?) pci-e

never worked with the original DVD in the drive; now using a disc image and the game runs flawlessly.

Tom

 

[Umm241]

P4 3 GHz
768 RAM
GeForce FX 5500
XP SP 2

Plays pretty much laggy all the time, but sometimes gets into ultra lag mode, which makes me need to restart the game. Had to turn off the movies, since they messed my game pretty badly. Even at the start of the game my FPS rarely goes over 12. Ugh.

 

[MattJek]

AMD 2.2 G
448 RAM
GeForce4 MX 64MB

No graphic problems but very slow and laggy

 

[popewiz]

Exact same as Umm241 above. My FPS hovers around 12 in the beginning and drops to around 9 by the end game at which point it is really a pain to move the map around at all. Of course my videos are all slow or they skip.

P4 1.7GHz
768 MB RAM
GeForce FX 5500 128 MB
Sound Blaster Live!

 

[mchristnsen]

On my PC (on which I play WoW, Battlefield 2, and others)
2.8 GHZ P4
1.2 MB RAM (DDR)
GeForce FX 5700LE 128mb
Soundmax Digital Audio

Sound stutters in wonders movies and opening movie. At high graphic settings, game is so slow as to be unplayable. At lowest graphic setting (along with some various odd suggestions from the forums) it was painfully slow but playable enough to waste the weekend. Needed to alt-tab every 5 minutes to the desktop to clear up some of the sluggishness.

On my laptop:
1.73Ghz Pentium M
1.5MB ram
Mobile Intel 915GM Express
SoundMAX digital audio

Game performs amazingly well at top graphic settings. No lag to speak of. However, the opening movie does not show at all and wonders movies are corrupted.

So, there you have it. On my less-powerful laptop with a low-end graphic chipset, it runs great. On my gaming computer, it's barely playable at the lowest settings. Both systems are fully patched and have updated drivers.

Go figure.

 

[Ashlord]

1.6 GHZ P4
512 meg Sdram
64 meg Nvidia Geforce 2MX
Santa Cruz sound card

Intro movie sound was choppy. Wonder movies don't play, very choppy. Other than that, everything else seems good. Only played about 2 hours so far. Two different games. Unit response might be a little slow, but nothing terrible. Left at defaut game settings. Will play with that tonight.

 

[Tulkas12]

P4 1.8ghz
256 ram
geforce2 100/200

It runs but is very slow loading and between turns...

I had to increase the HDD space for paging my ram....

wait.... wait.... wait some more lol...

stupid ram...

 

[Tulkas12]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
GeForce 7800GTX
2GB DDR400 Corsair RAM
Windows XP Pro x64

1600x1200, 4xAA, everything high

Scrambled intro and wonder videos (resolution has not affected this)
Game crashes after about 15-30mins of gameplay.

This is concerning... this says even if I did buy a whole new PC it might not work lol

 

[nealpolitan]

AMD Athlon XP 3200+
1GB PC3200 RAM
Win XP home SP2
eVGA GeForce 6600GT, 128MB VRAM
ASUS A7N8x-deluxe MoBo

Everything runs fine while it's running. I get a CTD about every 30mins. I had one BSOD the first time I ran it, but since updating to the Forceware 81.85, no more of those. My CTD's are related to the autosave about 1/2 the time, the rest are spontaneous as far as I can tell. I have played for hours on end with no crash and I've had it crash a minute after I load a save game.

As a side note, I can't believe none of the pro reviewers had any of these problems. I read 3-4 reviews (gamespot, ign, gamespy, etc) and nobody mentioned any instabilities. So, either they were playing it on a reference system (known to be stable) or they just didn't mention it out of fear/greed/lust/gluttony.... or maybe my box sucks.

 

[FSkornia]

Intel Pentium 4 1.6 GHz
768 MB Ram
Win XP Pro SP2
256 MB ATI Radeon 9550
Soundblaster Live! Value

I had the ATI rendering issue when I first installed it, but unpacking the Asset files solved that. The only problem I get now is the choppy sound in the Wonder movies. I've tried turning down and off my hardware acceleration to no avail. Aside from that, I have all the graphics settings on high. The game does seem to get a bit sluggish near the end game when the world has been revealed, but it's far from unplayable.

 

[Big Ev]

This is concerning... this says even if I did buy a whole new PC it might not work lol

I know, frustration is just the tip of the iceberg with me.

I am really hoping for a fix soon, cause I know this game is probably gem, but right now its a dirty gem.

 

[dragontail]

P4 3.0GHz HT
1024 MB PC3200
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz 5.1
NVidia 6600GT AGP
Windows XP Pro SP2

Playing at 1920x1200 res, 2x AA, everything set to high. Man, I thought my system was more than enough for the game, now I don't know if I can call it merely ok (FPS in 15-30 range).

 

[scarl]

Athlon 3200+
1024 Mb DDR2
Nforce2 Sound onboard
Ati 9800Pro (Last ATI drivers on Omega's Control panel)
XP Media center (SP2)
1280x1024, 4x AA, runs smooth as vodka! (this is VERY smooth, for those who dont't drink, Absolutely no crashes nor low fps)